The American Medical Association (AMA) continues its malicious attack on the overburdened healthcare system with hundreds of efforts over the past four years to limit patient access to care and decision-making through its #StopScopeCreep campaign. The Academy of Doctoral PAs (ADPA) addressed this hostile campaign in its infancy, but the continued perpetuation of malevolent actions demands a revisited address. Considering the over-burdened and stressed healthcare system, now is the time to come together, work collaboratively, and focus on what's truly best for patients and the healthcare system. Instead, the AMA continues to perpetuate a campaign, unfortunately, that does not serve that purpose.
The Importance of Evidence In Research
When surveys and articles are written, we all have to be very careful in our interpretation of their validity. I caution those who review American Medical Association’s (AMA) surveys and interpret the AMA findings as reflective of patient sentiment. Physicians promoting these narratives are engaging in fear-mongering and are disingenuous about the quality care and added value to the healthcare system that PAs provide. As stated in the evidence-based article below, we must place an emphasis on evidence-based medicine (EBM) and articles that reflect the stringent standards that we place on their findings. AMA physician surveys do no such thing. Because of this, we must instead turn our attention to articles, such as the second one below, that highlight what value PAs added to the healthcare team with NO increase in medical malpractice cases.
Unity Over Infighting
The medical community should not support campaigns that unfairly disparage the quality of care provided by PAs, especially when the evidence-based data clearly contradicts these claims. Meanwhile, we should work to highlight the fact that the AMA is a minority-backed physician group with a dubious and disparaging background towards both the African American and women communities. The time is now to unite at the same table and do what’s best for patients and the healthcare system. This AMA #StopScopeCreep campaign is certainly not that.
Tenny S, Varacallo M. Evidence Based Medicine. [Updated 2022 Oct 24]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470182/
2. KILGORE, James R. et al. Addressing Misconceptions about the Physician Associate/Assistant Profession.Medical Research Archives, [S.l.], v. 12, n. 6, june 2024. ISSN 2375-1924. Available at: <https://esmed.org/MRA/mra/article/view/5545>. Date accessed: 10 sep. 2024. doi: https://doi.org/10.18103/mra.v12i6.5545.
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